


Marigold

by threewalls



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Candies, Day of the Dead, Festivals, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Grief, M/M, One of My Favorites, Post-Game(s), Reunions, Rituals, Rozarria, Spiritual, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-22
Updated: 2008-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the Day of the Dead in Caristiale, Rozarria, Vossler meets someone he never thought to see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marigold

**Author's Note:**

> Written with thanks to lynndyre for beta and encouragement.

Vossler takes one of the marigolds from the bunch, crushes it between his fingers and dabs the colour over the scalp of the sugar skull. He holds a knife-blade in the flame of a candle for a count of thirty, and then presses it sinking in across the skull's brow, a dark brown line left where the sugar has burnt.

The Light is revered differently in Rozarria. They have the same festivals here, on the same day, with the same name, but their observances are not the ones that he grew up with. Their meditations are more ritual than words, but the words that his mother had taught him rubbed transparent for Vossler those two years living like a rat beneath the city. These rituals in Rozarria are something new, something still clean, something in which he can almost hope.

Marigolds are their flower of the Dead, and stand for Earth. The candle itself is Light and its flame is Fire. He licks his fingers-- peppery, the marigold-- for Water, rubs the candle-wick Dark. Unburnt wax scents the Air. Vossler makes the sign of the Six across his chest and then locks the window-shutters before leaving the room. It will be evening before he returns.

In the street, a child looking over her shoulder runs full-tilt into his armoured arms, glancing up a grinning Death's head of white and black paint above a garland of orange-yellow ruffled flowers. Her father smiles an apology in passing, his own grin painted on, herding children towards the parade. Vossler is still foreign enough to refuse to mark his face, but this suit of armour, tan, green and iron, isn't what he wears day-to-day. It's the suit he was wearing when the hunters found him staggering delirious through the Sandsea, and he kept it only because Margrace's girl had been willing to pay their price. But it is appropriate dress today. This armour belongs to a dead man, the Vossler he used to be.

The centre of the street is cordoned off for the floats, the marching bands, the dancers. Light and colour and sound. But Vossler's attention is on the press of people between the cordon-line and the buildings, between his boarding house and the Pink Rebe. It's one of a few places Vossler knows where men go for a drink, and perhaps something more, and where he's most likely to find a foreigner looking for a friendly local guide. If he's lucky, he'll find one with the right build.

Dalmascans do not mourn their dead with this-- joy and revelry. Vossler buried his grief when the news that the Kingslayer swung reached Lowtown, and again when Ashelia stood to be crowned with no protector by her side, but on this holy day, his memories do not stay settled. Every blond head draws his eye, turns his head. Now and again, Vossler even thinks he hears his name shouted in a familiar accent amongst the din of street chatter and trumpets.

Basch might have liked Rozarria. He had been built poorly for the heat, burnt too easily, but it is almost winter now and Caristiale is on the temperate north-eastern coast. Basch would have liked the Pink Rebe, close enough to the aerodrome to pull rebe as well as Bhujerbans. Basch had never had trouble finding company when he went looking, or trouble sharing when Vossler went looking for him. The Rebe is close enough to the docks to pull sailors from across the Jagd Njall, where lies Archadia's province for the past twenty years, the ex-republic of Landis. Vossler thinks Basch would have liked the crowds in Caristiale today, the parade, the children running, laughing, in the streets. Vossler tries to mourn his homeland as Basch had done, with a small smile and his gaze soft on the horizon. It is easy to picture Basch like that, though they were so much younger then.

The sway-press of the crowd knocks Vossler back to the present. Someone jostles him, grabs his arm from behind. Vossler jabs his elbow back, twisting to swing a fist-- but he is caught.

"Vossler! It is you!"

The man's golden hair is clipped unfamiliarly short, his cheeks are clean-shaven and his jacket is local, normal, nothing Vossler had ever seen this man wear. But the face, this face, he knows too well, marked by the scar Vossler barely had time to learn. The strip of chest bared by the open shirt is the same telling pink as the bridge of his nose, and his smile, his blue eyes: he recognises Vossler.

"They tell me that the Dead walk today--" Basch says.

"I don't want to talk."

Basch frowns. His grip on Vossler's fist has shifted, clasping Vossler's vambraced forearm. Vossler takes hold of Basch's in return, sun-warmed flesh under tight blue cotton, tendons, bone and strength. For a ghost, Basch's arm feels so real, so alive.

"I have a place," Vossler says.

Basch nods, and then Vossler's pushing back against the crowd, dragging Basch in his wake. Vossler looks over his shoulder every five paces-- ten, fifteen paces, once they're off the main boulevard and moving faster, however long he can bear not to look. But the man he has hold of remains Basch and no other, still here, still whole. They're at his doorstep before Vossler even thinks of letting go of Basch's arm.

It had become dusk as they ran, and now it is night, the paved street lit by gas lamp-posts and the flickering cast of gourd lanterns in the windows of shop-fronts and apartments. The night breezes carry the rhythms of distant music, the scent of flowers, sweet and spice. The parade has drawn a thicker crowd than last year, Archadia's heathen emperor accompanying his new wife home: the Day of the Dead is a hearth festival. Vossler's boarding house is empty, because tonight is a night for family and they are none.

Vossler latches the door behind his back and herds Basch through the atrium and up the stairs to his room. He drops his unbuckled gauntlets as he kicks his door closed, and takes Basch's head in his hands, bare thumb stroking over the scar across his brow. Basch's hands go to his waist, but Vossler can only feel their pressure through his armour, not their heat.

"Vossler, you--"

"No talking. Please."

Vossler kisses him. It's easier than it should be, for a first time.

Basch's lips are dry but soft. His arms tighten about Vossler's waist, one of his knees sliding to rest between Vossler's as he takes a half-step closer, but no press, no rush, not yet. Vossler can feel one of Basch's hands touching his hair.

It's tempting to stand here in the dark, to close his eyes, but Vossler pushes Basch back gently, another kiss and another even as their feet step apart. He glances across to the bed, large enough for its uses, but huge in the sparsely furnished room. Basch ducks his head, grinning, and steals Vossler's belt before letting him away.

Vossler circuits the room, touching five stones for their light. They will dim with lack of movement, eventually, but for now cast a soft illumination. Vossler wants to see that scar while he can. Basch is watching him, still holding Vossler's belt loosely in one hand, still dressed.

Vossler looks Basch up and down; even in Rozarrian costume, Basch dresses to the right, like he did before. Vossler thinks to ask if it was in Rozarria that Basch met his end, what would explain this foreign costume, this shorn haircut. He's heard no news of Ashelia reaching this empire on her journey to recover her sovereignty, but the rumours of her presence in Dalmasca were scarce even while he stood beside her cot each night in Lowtown watching her sleep. He has not asked her where Basch fell, cannot bear to tell her that he has not had the courage to die.

"Skin?" Vossler asks.

Basch nods.

Vossler's belt hits the floor, and then Basch's jacket. Vossler reaches for the side-clasps of his brigandine, un-hinging the chest plates. On the bed, Basch is peeling out of his trousers, which are as Vossler expected exactly too tight to wear aught underneath. Vossler crouches between Basch's open legs to help pull Basch's trousers free, thinks of sucking him. He does not remember the act being so difficult. But Basch falls forward to catch Vossler's mouth, his blind fingers fumbling with the fastening of Vossler's battle shorts. His fingertips touch skin, a hipbone, hair, his mouth suddenly tentative. Vossler pushes up into the kiss, half-standing, bending Basch back onto the bed, hot, smooth skin sliding into the fist he makes as he jacks Basch hard.

Basch bites Vossler's lip, and then kicks an ankle behind Vossler's calf. Vossler pitches off balance, breaks his hold to catch himself. Basch grins, all innocence, until his toes twitch in the sensitive bend of Vossler's knee. Vossler stands, kicking his loose shorts off. Basch kicks the sheets down to the foot and lies with open arms outstretched.

Vossler starts on top, but they roll over and again, hands reaching, thighs pressing to touch. Basch's body feels so solid, his skin so warm. It's so easy, so good that Vossler can almost forget why they didn't do this years ago. Basch's mouth doesn't stay on Vossler's, but moves as wide as his hands.

Basch doesn't taste of smoke or magick, sugar or the desert, or any of the high holy elements. He tastes like a man, salt and sour sweat, and if the skin over his brow, that scar, tastes of pepper, it's only the memory of Vossler's earlier touch. Basch has no words of magick inscribed on his skin, only the chaotic lines and patches of a lifetime of scars under his fuzz of near-invisible blond pelt. His hair's too damn short, but he's Basch, here, warm, and--

Vossler groans when Basch nips Vossler's collarbone, and then further along his shoulder, Basch bites. Vossler's hips buck up despite Basch's weight, as his teeth hold Vossler's flesh and his mouth sucks. Vossler's arms tighten around his back.

"I always wanted to do that." Basch's eyes are dark, but his smile is small, secret.

He opens his mouth to speak again, and Vossler licks his tongue inside. Vossler doesn't mark, doesn't play favourites, doesn't kiss until his lips feel sensitive and bruised, but tonight proof is too compelling a need. Vossler doesn't want to think of the morning yet to come, but if he could feel this, feel something then--

"What do you want?" Basch asks.

"Fuck me."

Outside, the bells in the temple toll nine, hours yet before dawn. They'll have time.

Vossler keeps his supplies on his bedside table. His usual class of visitor demands no more subtlety. Basch sits back towards the end of the bed. Vossler throws him a wrapped condom and bends up his own knee. He hisses at the cold touch, but perseveres, breathes deep, strokes his cock for the welcome distraction. Vossler was two years too old already to let others take him when Basch came to Dalmasca, two years Vossler's junior, and his own fingers never felt good enough after that. They're not enough now, but Basch is watching.

"Like this?" Basch asks, kneeling close between Vossler's spread legs. His cock is sheathed, and slick, and huge.

Vossler nods, and drops his head to the pillow, staring at the ceiling. He cannot meet Basch's eyes for this.

Vossler exhales as Basch's fingers stretch him yet further with their girth, Basch's thumb brushing through the surrounding coarse hair. Vossler is spread and he is entered. Vossler looks down; Basch is watching him, but not his face.

Basch's hands stroke down Vossler's trembling, raised thighs. Young men have it easy, Vossler thinks, as the overextension of his muscles aches. If magick can gift Vossler the illusion of his friend, a phantom that touches him as though these desires were not ridiculous in a man of his age, magick could take Vossler back to his youth, or even only so far as the years directly before the war, to any time he might have overstepped their friendship. But the thought leaves the core of Vossler cold, despite the muscle burn of Basch's steady rhythm. Vossler links his arms behind Basch's neck, breathes deep and demands that his body bends. The Basch of his memories never touched him like this, but is dearer still for being true.

Basch's body falls onto him with more weight, his skin close and slick with sweat. Basch tries to kiss Vossler, but the angle is impossible while he's moving. He kisses, licks along Vossler's jaw, his cheek, and Vossler knows the exact moment Basch tastes quiet salt for his rhythm stutters and then slows.

"Don't you dare stop." Though his tears have been silent, Vossler can hear how they have corroded his voice. What had been difficult with the welcome distraction of Basch's body pressing him down is impossible when Basch pulls back, but Vossler does not let Basch break the linkage of his arms.

"Am I hurting you?"

"You can't hurt me like this."

Vossler grips Basch with his thighs, arms tight across Basch's shoulders, but Basch does stop. His hand touches Vossler's face.

"The fucking doesn't hurt. Please, Basch. I want you. I--" Vossler's voice breaks. "I miss you."

Basch had always been eager to volunteer in place of men with wives, with families, the first to speak whether an ancient saurian needed luring away from the overland trade routes or the Order hoped an assassin might be confused between Basch's blond hair and Raminas'. The soldiering life is not known for longevity, and Basch, at least, had died with honour. This is surely not so different, except that only now is Vossler crying and that his tears will not cease.

"Oh, Vossler." Basch exhales, rubs his face against Vossler's cheek. "I miss you, too." Basch kisses him once, light and almost chaste, and then pulls back to line himself and Vossler's legs back up, drive back into Vossler's body.

"Basch, I miss you." Three little words he'd never said to Basch, not that time in the stink and close squalor of Rabanastre's undercity or in the scant months that followed, on that ship or in the desert, not even long enough for Vossler start waking up in the morning, remembering Basch was alive. "I'm sorry."

"Shh-- I'm here, Vossler." Basch reaches down for Vossler's cock, sword calluses rough and tender. "I've got you."

\---

Vossler wakes to sunlight sneaking through the chinks in the window-shutters. His skin prickles with sleep-dried sweat and he is over-warm, though naked under the thin blanket. He has company, but not quite the hangover to explain why he hadn't kicked this one out when they were done. The ache is not behind his eyes, but in them; and then Vossler remembers. All his muscles tense.

"Are you awake?"

Vossler's throat is dry. The Dead should not outstay the dawn, but Basch's lap is Vossler's pillow, his fingertips touching through Vossler's hair. His voice is rough, but his thigh is solid, the weave of his shirt-tail leaving its mark on Vossler's cheek.

Vossler raises himself to sitting, and opens the window-latch. He rubs the grit from sun-narrowed eyes as he turns to face Basch, who is sitting against the headrail, half-dressed, his ridiculous Rozarrian shirt open to the waist. Basch is smiling, and his eyes are red. Vossler takes the hand Basch reaches out, and then can only stare at their linked hands. The skull, the ritual, is a prayer to the dead, communication, not invocation. Vossler had hoped that Basch might hear it, but he should not have thought it could give Basch flesh. Basch shouldn't still be here, but he is. This must be something else.

Regrets can keep the dead from passing, but Vossler has not seen Basch here before. The thought makes him suddenly grateful, for he would not want to drive a fiend with Basch's face from this place, but that only means the regret must not be Basch's. Vossler has so many: from the king he had not tried hard enough to save, the princess he had kept alive, but not safe, delivered to the enemy in chains, the dishonour in not dying nobly in sacrifice, in not dying before turning traitor, in not dying yet at all.

But Vossler's regrets are muted by time. Ashelia has been proclaimed queen, anointed and crowned. She has a son, only one, but Ashelia's mother was fertile and in peace, there is time. Vossler's dishonours stay him from returning home, but their weight is less now that Dalmasca is free.

Basch's hand is warm in Vossler's.

"However you gave your life, Basch, I wish that I had fallen instead."

"I haven't-- Vossler, you survived Shiva's fall?"

Basch surges onto Vossler, taking them both to the bed, and pinning Vossler more by gravity than design. Vossler kicks to untangle their legs, but Basch is only touching Vossler's hair, again, stroking at his temples.

"You live. I did not think you had begun to grey, before."

Vossler shakes Basch's hand from his head. "But, Basch, you cannot-- Do you serve her under another's name?"

"I serve the Emperor as--"

"Gabranth? I would believe you a fiend from the desert before I--"

"No. No, my brother died in the war. I serve with his name, but Vossler, you know me. Don't you?"

Basch's blue eyes are red-limned with lack of sleep. Vossler raises his hand to traces the ridge of Basch's brow scar with his thumb, and then bends his neck to follow the path with his lips. He whispers in Basch's ear: "I like your hair better long."

Basch exhales. "We both live?"

"So it seems."

Basch slides off Vossler. He presses his face to Vossler's neck, and then to his chest, invisible morning stubble scraping the path to a place in the left of Vossler's breast. After Basch has settled, Vossler raises his hand, stroking over the thin, short hairs at the back of Basch's neck.

They lie there, at the foot of the bed. Vossler can feel every breath Basch takes, the flutter of his eyelashes, and his heat, everywhere Basch touches him. He can feel the sheet, the itch of the blanket wrinkled beneath his back. Vossler has stayed in Caristiale because he cannot go home and there has been nowhere better. Hunters and sell-swords can find work anywhere, and Vossler is too old to let this chance with Basch slip away. Outside, the temple bells toll, nine, ten, eleven.

Basch's stomach gurgles.

"Do you have any food?"

Vossler's room has no kitchen. He comes here for two reasons only, neither of them eating, so he keeps no food. No taverna on the street will open before noon and few before the siesta. It is a holy day. Across the room, Vossler can see the skull on the table, gleaming white.

"Want some candy?"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Visitations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/156796) by [threewalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls)




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